A Sign of Continuing Anger Among Prop. 187’s Sponsors

An Orange County group that co-sponsored Proposition 187 on the 1994 ballot fanned the flames of controversy again this week when it erected a billboard near the Arizona border that welcomes visitors to “California, the Illegal Immigrant State.”

Several Latino leaders expressed outrage over the Coalition for Immigration Reform’s latest tactic in the emotional debate over immigration. The board, which went up Monday along Interstate 10 near Blythe, reads: “Welcome to California, the Illegal Immigrant State. Don’t Let This Happen to Your State.”

Critics called the board’s message racist, but coalition president Barbara Coe said it is meant as a warning to other states about “the devastation that has occurred in California because of illegal immigration and bilingual education.”

Santa Ana attorney Jess Araujo blasted the billboard as “outrageous and grandstanding at its worse. They are exploiting a very complicated issue for self-serving needs,” he said.

Roberto Martinez, executive director of the San Diego-based American Friends Service, an immigrants’ rights organization, said the billboard “shows deep-rooted hate and anti-immigrant feelings aimed at Latinos.”

Added Martinez, “‘Messages like this bring out the worst in people, like the neo-Nazis and Klan members who came out to the border a few years ago to attack immigrants.”

Coe denied that the billboard’s message and the successful campaign for Proposition 187 were designed as attacks on Latino immigrants.

“You don’t see Mexican, Hispanic or Latino on the billboard or 187,” Coe said. “We’re blanketing illegal aliens in general. The billboard is there [Blythe] because the southern border is the gateway for illegal immigration.”

Coe said the message is not designed to divide the races.

“If anybody has any doubts about this they can contact the many members in our group who come from various ethnic groups,” Coe added.

Proposition 187, which divided the state four years ago on the subject of immigration, emerged from Orange County. The measure, approved with support from the Republican Party and Gov. Pete Wilson, bars illegal immigrants from attending public schools and receiving social services and health care.

However, U.S. District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer in Los Angeles issued an order in March forbidding the implementation of these provisions. The measure had been effectively bogged down in court since its passage, when opponents filed constitutional challenges to the key provisions.

Proposition 187 supporters appealed Pfaelzer’s ruling to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, where the case now sits.

Araujo said that Coe’s group, which is based in Huntington Beach, should allow the courts to decide on the legality of Proposition 187. Putting up the billboard was a sign of “desperation,” he added.

“The measure is now a legal issue and they should have faith in our courts. To not have enough confidence in the legal system is shortsighted on their part,” Araujo said.

After Pfaelzer announced her ruling, Wilson said that state authorities also would appeal the judge’s order.

Wilson’s office did not return calls for comment about the billboard.

Despite the criticism that it has stirred, Coe remained unapologetic about the billboard’s message and brushed aside opponents’ criticism.

“How else do we get the truth out to people?” Coe said. “It doesn’t bother me at all to be called racist. It’s always been water off a duck, because I know better.”

She said the board will be up for one year, and the group has plans to erect similar boards on Interstate 5, between Orange County and San Diego, and between Los Angeles and San Francisco, before the end of the year.

Last week, a spokesman for the group said the board cost “between $5,000 and $10,000” to lease for a year.

Martinez expressed surprise at the cost and time that the group put into the billboard.

“These people must have a lot of hate to invest this kind of money and energy in a message that promotes divisiveness in our state,” he said.